In the production of continuous glass fibers, it has been long desired to produce a winding system wherein the fibers are substantially continuously wound and attenuated. With the advent of winders having a plurality of driven rotatable collets mounted on an indexable head wherein each of the collets are capable of winding a plurality of packages thereon, the need for a fully automatic strand control system such that each of the strands are positioned and controlled to permit indexing of the collet between the package build and package doff positions with the subsequent repositioning of the strands in a proper package building region on the appropriate collet has greatly increased.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,057,195 issued to Jones et al. on Nov. 8, 1977 and 4,085,901 issued to Sanders on Apr. 25, 1978 have provided some solutions in developing an automated winder for the continuous production of glass filaments.